The manager as role model
Featured in the Complaint handling for positive outcomes training manual
By Nina Lockwood
Category: Customer Service
Credit price: 4 download credits (Single user)
The behavioural qualities of the management team are emulated throughout an organisation. Managers who have the ability to empower feel comfortable in pushing power and decision making down through the team, thus leading to better customer relations and a more speedy solving of complaints. However, there are number of characteristics a manager must possess in order to embrace truly the concept of empowerment — the ability to trust people being perhaps the most obvious. These characteristics are displayed on a daily basis through the manager’s visible behaviour, which in turn ‘breeds’ behaviour in the team. Therefore, the role of manager in the complaint-handling process is critical to its overall success.
You start the training activity with a brief exercise in which you ask the participants to think about the things they do on a daily basis that makes up their role as a manager. You conclude this exercise by pointing out that, as a manager, they have many different hats to wear but that their ‘role model’ hat is of primary importance in driving forward a complaint-friendly culture in the organisation. You then ask the participants to look at the four different style of management, all of which have their place in relation to demonstrating positive behaviours. Working in small groups, the participants next consider the concept of empowerment and how it can work for them within their own organisation/ department. Methods for modelling empowering behaviour are covered at this point. You end the training activity with an action-planning exercise in the form of ‘creating the right environment’. You can acknowledge the facts that behaviour can be changed through a change in working environment and ask the participants to consider what they can do to create a supportive and enabling environment at their place of work.
Who is it for: This training resource is intended for use by trainers to help participants look at ways of ensuring that their people are following appropriate behaviours, which are consistently reinforcing the positive way the company deals with its customers.
| Resource Type: | Activity |
| Min Group Size: | 6 |
| Max Group Size: | 12 |
| Typical Duration: | 02:50:00 |
| No of Pages: | 22 |
Resources: View standard resources for Fenman training activities
Purpose: This training resource is intended for use by trainers with all line managers and supervisors, that is, people who have responsibility for other members of staff within an organisation. It is also appropriate for those aspiring to lead a team in the near future. It is used to its highest benefit when all levels of management attend because this promotes a consistency of behaviour throughout the organisation.
Download the training activity, The manager as role model as featured in the Fenman training manual; Complaint handling for positive outcomes